incident; nothing will happen now; only listen to the tones." So she sat entirely quiet, with her eyes fixed upon the stage.

"This portrait is charmingly beautiful," sang Tamino.

"Thine," whispered Hubert. "Thy picture in the rococo frame, Mozart's vibrating tones and trills winding about it."

She turned towards him. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing in particular," he said again, "it was much too far-fetched to explain it to you now."

"It is indeed very hard, and I do not understand it at all," she said sadly.

Whilst he, excited by the day passed at her side, by the wine at dinner, by the music, talked ceaselessly between the acts, she remained silent, but this silence was more congenial to him than otherwise. He did not ask whether she understood all that he said to her, if she only listened to him with that earnest expression. He spoke of his work, which the public would understand after the lapse of time. One day he would be so celebrated that artists and laymen would follow him, would believe in him. And then he told her of his youthful love, to which he had before only alluded. She had understood him as no one ever would do again.

"Bah! that is over," he cried, "and it is well. I was then very young. Do you not know the verse:

Wer zum ersten Male liebt, Sei's auch glücklos, is ein Gott, Aber wer zum zweiten Male.

"Oh, well, you haven't read Heine, you do not know it? But you needn't blush on that account. Poor child, how sensitive you are to-day. Be comforted, it is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, to-day it is no longer the fashion. There are very respectable people, of well regulated minds who look sober when they are sad, and only

laugh when something pleases them. The greatest lyrical writer of the Germans is no longer esteemed by themTherefore, as I tell you, I conquered that ancient history long ago. For now I have you! And you will stay with me, you child. And you love me and you will continue to love me. Beside you, my Lisbeth, I do not need to be afraid that I will love unluckily the second time, and therefore be considered a fool, as the verse has it. You have not somewhere a wooer who is more comfortably off than I am."

She looked down at her lap that he should not see the tears in her eyes. She was not weeping over what he said to her, for she scarcely heard it, but over this lack of comprehension, this strangeness, which so oppressed her today for the first time.

In the second act she asked him to look at his watch. The Frau Doctor's maid must be at home punctually at half past ten. What if she should be late! But he did not notice her anxiety. It would not matter. He was going to come for her in a couple of days. Did she think that he was going to have his bride remain a servant-maid any longer? To morrow he was going to Berlin to talk over the prospect with the Professor and some people and then he would return to prepare for the wedding.

"What! what is that?" he cried charmed with her shy contradiction. "You must first equip your sister and get her a place? Why? We will do that together later. I tell you, I will be married, will have a house and a home and make my way and push on! When we are married we will not go to Italy on a wedding journey as has been the custom from time immemorial. We will go to England, better-to Glasgow, where new thoughts, new styles and new motives rule, which you, uninfluenced by the classical age will see with fresh eyes. And," he continued

softly, for the music had again commenced and the people on the seat before them turned round and motioned him to be still-"and if then you are not pleased with what I think beautiful, if you do not feel with me, my lines and my color-ideas, also myself and my thought,-then, then-"

He looked into her eyes, smiling, loving, in careless security. The music played, Tamino and Papageno, after enduring the most singular trials, were happily united with their best loved, and there was a wonderfully beautiful tableau for conclusion. She saw it all and heard the music and understood nothing of it all.

It was already late, long past eleven, when he took her home.

"Good night, my love," he said, "till to morrow. At six o'clock in the evening I will be punctually at your door, to speak to you once more before I start for Berlin. When I come back, I will go directly to Dr. Ross to demand you from him and we will celebrate our marriage."-He took her in his arms: "My Lisbeth, what can they do to you, my heart, that you tremble so! How? Would you rather stay with me, now, in the night and indeed not go back to your servitude?" and he kissed her on the eyes and held her fast.

But in the next second-he must have felt the painful sighs, with which she tremblingly clung to him-then he pushed her from him:

"No, no! That I will not yet!'

He had released her from his arms. As if hunted she fled from him, through the little front garden and knocked on the cellar window. The cook Wea was still awake. She came in her shuffling slippers and unlocked the door for her: "What is the matter with you? Everybody has been asking for you."

Lisbeth slipped as silently as possible through the house, silent for the night. And yet in the first story the door

opened and there stood the Frau Doctor before her in her red sleeping gown and the light in her hand:

"It is you at last! Where have you been so late? I thought something must have happened to you-Now, do speak."

"Ah, Frau Doctor! Yes, we were at the theatre. If the Frau Doctor will only excuse me this once," she stammered.

The lady looked at her with a penetrating glance. "Were you with Dr. Ehren? And he is really going to marry you? Lisbeth, if he only does not some day repent, and then you will also be unhappy!"

She turned and went back with her silver lamp in which the light was flickering, to her sleeping room.

As if her feet were shod with lead Lisbeth went up the second flight to her own room. Wilhelmina was fast asleep. She did not light up. She took off her clothes, slipped into bed and lay there and folded her hands under the cover over her heart, trying to keep it from beating so loud that it might waken others.

Hubert indeed wished to marry her. She had no such doubts as the lady had as to that. All that he had said to her of their wedding and travels and of their future now passed through her mind again. And his mother in her black satin dress, Grethe with the plate of cakes, the elegant Mrs. Lydia in the brilliantly lighted restaurant, who looked at her so strangely. And her mother there at home in the village, who had so often struck her and would strike her again, if she ever vexed her. And Lina, who was always growing out of her own things, and who from the big sister Lisbeth expected shoes, dresses, aprons, a good service and advice and money. If she were a rich woman, Frau Doctor Ehren, or soon, as he had said, Frau Professor, then she would never need

to go back to the village again, she would receive no more blows, she would have dresses enough and for Lina also. And from his beard and clothes she again breathed the delicate perfume which charmed her. And he again drew her toward him and looked at her with his shining eyes: "To see the lines of your neck, the way the hair grows on your temples, that is happiness for me."

And she heard his mother saying: "A feast for your eyes!"

Wilhelmina

She turned in her bed. snored. Noiselessly she stretched out one bare foot, then the other from under the covers, slipped over the creaking boards, opened her drawer, and drew from between the clothes the white frame-she knew where to find it in the dark-took it back into bed with her and lighted her little light. She looked at all the fine lines which gave the shadows such value, and at the lines of the hair. She again examined the face, which she had never rightly understood. Her own hair was loosened, the sleeping jacket had drawn it down upon her neck, she propped herself up in bed and held the drawing in the frame and stared at it fixedly. How like she was to the picture in this position, in this light, she had no idea.

Wilhelmina turned around in bed, as if she were going to wake up. Lisbeth hurriedly put out the light, and concealed the picture under the cover. She listened, almost breathless. But the other was already asleep again. Then she let her head sink back on her pillows and lay with great, wide open eyes the entire night.

With the dawn of day she got up. Wilhelmina turned herself yawning, stretched herself and asked why she was getting up so early. Lisbeth gave her no answer, she was already half out of the room, as if she had not heard the question. She went down

into the kitchen, took from the shelf the little bottle of ink, placed upon the wooden table a sheet of paper and wrote.

When the cook and the maids came into the kitchen, she was already at work.

In the afternoon she asked the old coachman to do something for her. She brought him a packet and a letter, and charged him that he should deliver it and not wait and not make a mistake.

"Oh, yes, oh, yes, certainly," said Henry Meyer, "I will surely take it, you can be certain; I know the hotel and I can easily find it. I know how to take love letters for the girls. That is a letter."

"Hei!" said Wilhelmina, "you look as if you were miserable, Lisbeth, what is the matter with you? Such a fine man, I saw him go by. And yet you are not satisfied!"

"Let her alone!" said the old Wea, and caressed the girl, "she is still young. Not so, Lisbeth?"

When the table was set, the Frau Doctor came through the room. "How you are looking, Lisbeth! You must know that I wish you well. But if it happens often that you come home so late-And then with such an anxious countenance-with such unhappy eyes, so-No, that will not do."

"Frau Doctor, it will never happen again."

"You say so now. But when you are with Dr. Ehren,-if this lasts much longer-"

"No, Frau Doctor, it will not last longer. It is ended. I have written him a letter."

"Written?" The lady looked at her unbelievingly-"written, what?"

"That I cannot marry him. I am not suited to him. He will not see it. But I know it well, since yesterday-and after, after he would know it and then it would be too late."

"And he, what does he say?"

"Ah, that I do not yet know. I am so anxious. He will not like it." The lady shook her head. "A strange world!" she said.

When Lisbeth went to her room in the evening, she did not look at her drawer. There were her clothes and her two dresses, but no longer a picture. Toward morning she dropped asleep. Wilhelmina had to wake her. She cleared up the room as usual. Below the Frau Doctor sat at breakfast. The chambermaid, who was coming and going, left the door half open.

"The gentleman is coming at last! Frau Doctor could not understand what was keeping him. He had been called out at six o'clock, to a stranger, who lived in the hotel. Something unlucky must have happened. I almost know it."

They both listened. The firm step of the doctor was heard on the stairs. They heard what he said to his wife. "What, dear child, you are still waiting for me with the tea. You should not do that.

young man. all over now.

Yes, it is a sad story. A Shot in the breast. It is And strange-the whole time, while he was struggling with death, he had his eyes, already failing, fixed upon a picture, a sketch of one of the modern French, such as you admire. I looked at it myself and read the name on the back of the frame, it was by Helleu!"

The two girls heard a low scream. Then quick questions and answers. Then another scream The doctor called for Wilhelmina. She ran in. Lisbeth stood with the broom and the dust cloth in her hands and knew nothing of herself and nothing whatever but that her heart and her head and she herself were turning around, more and more rapidly, all alone in a great, great void

"How you stand there!" cried Wilhelmina, who came in again, and hurriedly got flasks and cloths. "Frau

And Lisbeth braced herself and knelt beside the sofa and supported the head of the young woman, while her husband and the chambermaid loosened her clothing and bathed her forehead with ice water.

"I thank you, dear child," said the doctor, "do not be so disturbed, it is already over; fortunately it is not much. But you, you look as white as a cloth because my wife has fainted. And my poor wife here lost her consciousness because she heard that a man, whom she does not know, had shot himself. -Now-she will soon recover. It will be better for her not to see so many people when she comes to. Wilhelmina can stay. You may go without anxiety to your work.

She slipped out and wiped the dust from the furniture as she had been doing before.

In the afternoon, Frau Hertha lay on the lounge, which was drawn up to the window, her head propped up, while she turned over the leaves of a book. Lisbeth knocked softly. The two looked in each other's eyes a minute and then turned away from each other almost simultaneously.

"Frau Doctor," said the girl softly, "I only want to ask the Frau DoctorI-I must go away. If it is all the same to the Frau Doctor, then I will hunt another place."

Frau Hertha had raised herself. She wrung her small, white hands. And then she sprang up and passed through the room with trembling steps and then stood still before Lisbeth.

"How can you stand there so quietly? How can you be so still? Do you feel nothing? You have killed him, You!'

The girl took the end of her apron and laid it in little folds and held it so. One could see how she pressed her teeth together.

Then she spoke, her

young voice sounded as usual, scarcely

even trembling.

"Frau Doctor, I wrote to my betrothed, that is true. Frau Doctor also said that I was not suited to him, that I was entirely unfit for him. It could not be otherwise. And I knew well that he would take it badly from me. But that-No, I did not think that. And that I never wished. And if I had known it-"

"Does one ever know what will come out of her actions?" sighed the lady. "If I had known, imagined, when I was talking to you last evening."

"Frau Doctor," said the poor girl. "It is done. It must remain done."

"And you will take another place?" asked the lady, looking at the girl uncomprehendingly from her tearful eyes, "how will you do that, how can you do that?"

If

My

"I must, Frau Doctor, I dare not do that too; it would be very bad. Beside I have my sister to look out for. Frau Doctor will allow me to go, I will stay home for a couple of days. mother will scold. But that also is nothing much. I must look after my sister and see if I can bring her away at once. And if she is ready I would rather go to some house where we can stay together. And I would rather not be here in this town."

"And serve, serve, ever and ever, making beds and scrubbing stairs for strange people, your whole life long, and he dead-and you loved him?"

"Yes, Frau Doctor. But how does that help things now? I would gladly have been his wife. And at first I did not think of anything else. But Sunday, when I was with him, then I already knew it; that which he thought I could not be and so beautiful as I had imagined it-that was very stupid of me and his mother was quite friendly, but so strange. And he also was strange. I did not understand the half. And then all the people, Mrs.

Rundschau.

Weber, and others, who looked at meI was continually ashamed of myself. That I could not help. And so and on that account-"

Frau Hertha sadly shook her head: "It is incomprehensible. Such a person! But only go, Lisbeth-you know your way, as you wish to take it, better than I. Yes, only take it."

The girl bowed her head in thanks and went out of the room, in her red dress of a serving maid, with the little white cap.

Before Frau Geheimrath Ehren, sitting at her accustomed place by the window, was the white frame with the etching by Helleu, and on the knees of the old lady was spread out the letter which they had found on her dead

son:

My dearest Hubert:

I can not come this evening. I am very sorry. And I also can not come to morrow evening and no other evening. I can not marry you. Your mother saw it yesterday and now I also know it; it would not be suitable. And that the picture is so wonderfully beautiful as you found it and also the Frau Doctor- no, I can not see it so. Therefore I send it back to you. Do not be angry with me. Truly I can not. It is very sorrowful to me myself, but it can not be. Therefore I say adieu to you.

Your Elizabeth.

And the desolate old mother, as she compared the childish, uncertain lines of the short letter with the face which looked so earnestly from the frame of the etching, for the first time understood the love of her dead son, felt all at once through all her pain a comprehension, a something in common with that which he had perceived in her.

A child, as Hubert had said, but a child who knew what she ought to do, and without caring for the opinion of the world could take the best way to preserve her "Ego" and her individual entity.

Adalbert Meinhardt.